It took me this long to see The Last Jedi because I found The Force Awakens to be ersatz Star Wars, which caused me to avoid Rogue One. When I finally saw Rogue One, I found it to be a mess, which made me decide to skip The Last Jedi, as well.

(As for Solo, why would I want to see a stand-alone Han Solo film? That’s just silly.)

Nevertheless, even when I don’t see certain movies, I follow the skuttle-butt on those movies. I read a lot of vitriol about The Last Jedi, some of it rabid, a lot of it level-headed and well-reasoned.

When I finally sat down to watch The Last Jedi, I aimed to be objective because I once told a poster on a Timberwolves message board that I would be objective. Nevertheless, I fully expected to hop on board the hater train. Much to my surprise, I found The Last Jedi to be fairly solid. Maybe it is because I viewed the film after a visit to the dentist, and the Novocaine had some sort of damper effect on my inner negative nilly. Perhaps I have grown soft with age. Mayhap the purple-haze sheen of Laura Dern’s hair mellowed me out, man. Or, another possibility is that the film genuinely worked for me.

This is not to say that The Last Jedi is immune to nitpicking, but all of that has been gone over ad nauseum on the Internet already. I am going to try to pinpoint why the movie worked for me and then address some of the more infamous issues others have had with the film.

Pinpointing what worked for me actually took a bit of thinking. I couldn’t figure out what I liked at first. It wasn’t the action. You’ve seen one CGI space battle, you’ve pretty much seen them all at this point. It wasn’t the new characters or the old characters. Plus, I have no interest in the new actors (I’m not even sure their parents would claim they have any charisma compared to the old guard). Most everyone who shows up in the film is merely a face. Only Adam Driver/Kylo Ren manages to bring soul to the proceedings, along with a decent amount by Luke Skywalker/Mark Hamill. Finally, it wasn’t the story that interested me. It was all pretty surface level stuff. Despite the attempts at gravitas, I felt like I was wading in a dramatic kiddie pool.

And then if finally clicked why the movie worked with me — all of the relationships between the characters and the dynamics of those relationships made sense. Each character had fairly clear desires, and the character they were in a relationship with had the opposite desires. These push/pull dynamics created the energy that drove the movie.

Rey wanted Luke to help. Luke didn’t want to help. Who would win?

Kylo wanted to deal with Luke. Luke didn’t want to deal with Kylo. Who would win?

Poe wanted to act. Holdo/Leia wanted to wait. Who would win?

Finn wanted to do his thing. Rose wanted him to do her thing. Who would win?

Snoke wanted Kylo to obey. Kylo wanted to disobey. Who would win?

Hux wanted to be the man. Kylo wanted to be the man. Who would win?

And then at the heart of things: Kylo liked Rey. Rey didn’t like Kylo. Who would win?

I found myself interested in that stuff. Good job, movie. I didn’t even feel like anyone did anything particularly stupid in any of the relationships. On the flip side, non-individuals did stupid things here and there. For example, the Empire (yeah, yeah, First Order) sent Tie Fighters after the big ship, but then when all of the little ships left the big ship, they decided to shoot at the little ships one at a time with a cannon. Send the Tie Fighters, you dolts! But, whatever…

Let’s look at some of the bigger issues people had with The Last Jedi.

Subverted expectations: I read that subverted expectations were a big part of The Last Jedi. Things would not go the way I thought! Dun-dun-dun!

I actually didn’t feel that my expectations were subverted all that much. Good guys did good guy things. Bad guys did bad guy things. The story didn’t take any particularly out-of-the-box turns. Nothing wrong with any of that. Formula is formula for a reason.

Humor: I expected a lot of lame humor. The Last Jedi humor was, in fact, kind of lame, but I didn’t think it permeated the movie that much. Yes, the prank phone call bit was, if you’ll pardon the pun, a bad call. Way to undermine Hux right from the start. Bad move. Movies need good villains. On the plus side, Finn was less of a buffoon than he was in The Force Awakens. Finn’s character arc over two films is that he has become less punchable. I can’t believe they made him deliver the “Chrome Dome” line, though. Stuff like that makes me certain that Hollywood holds us all in contempt. Speaking of Captain Phasma, how bad can the Empire (yeah, yeah, First Order) be if they have women’s suffrage and appear to be an equal-opportunity employer?

Princess Poppins: Princess Leia floating through space also didn’t bother me that much. Really, that is the only interesting thing they gave Leia to do. Carrie Fisher/Princess Leia fared the worst in The Last Jedi. The character was badly written and, as a result, badly acted. A way to fix that would be cut Holdo from the story and let Princess Leia do all of the Holdo stuff. That would also cut down the film’s run-time and make it that much more punchy. Anything between Leia and Holdo was a waste of time. It was basically the same character talking to themselves. That should have been fixed at the screenplay level.

The Canto Bright Sequence: Again, this was not as bad as I expected. Even the animal rights bit wasn’t that intrusive. It made sense. They saw the horse-things race and then escaped on the horse-things. That is fairly organic storytelling. Definitely lose the kids, though. Kids make things annoying. That would also cut the ending, which was doubly annoying. Oh look, the little kid is wearing a Rebellion (yeah, yeah, Resistance) ring and looking up at the stars so he can some day go to war and blast Stormtroopers by the dozens. My soul soars…

Speaking of cutting characters…I’d also cut the Rose character to tighten up the film. That’s nothing against the actress, Kelly Marie Tran, either. I would cut Rose because then Poe could go to Canto Bright with Finn. That would be more interesting. Plus, it would give Poe something to do other than run around the ship whining to Holdo. Again, that could have been fixed at the screenplay level. You’d lose the mutiny stuff, I guess, but I think it would have been more interesting for Leia to think up all of what happened on the fly in place of that. Again, then her character has something to do beyond look heavily weighed upon. The filmmakers probably can’t kill Leia and Luke in the same movie, though, so that would take some finagling.

Oh yeah, while we are at it, let’s cut Yoda, too. That scene was pointless fan service and increased run-time. It would have been better to leave Luke watching the Millennium Falcon fly away and then show up later. Yoda just delivers Force blather.

Rehashing The Original Trilogy: I agree with this criticism. Using AT-ATs on a Hoth stand-in and going Return-of-the-Jedi-throne-room again were bad ideas. All that stuff did was remind me that The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi are better movies.

The Lightspeed Suicide Attack: I get the dislike for this story point, as well. It basically renders Star Wars space battles pointless. Just point a ship at a target and jump to light speed. I’m sure they can come up with some reason why it can never happen again, though. This is one of the problems with the CGI era. It creates the need to always going bigger in the destruction quotient. Star Destroyers used to be formidable. Holdo took out how many of them in ten seconds? Now whenever I see a Star Destroyer, I’ll think, why not just send an X-wing at it in lightspeed mode? Of course, I guess they took out a Super Star Destroyer by crashing a non-lightspeed A-wing into the bridge of one in Return of the Jedi, so Star Destroyers have already been neutered.

Snoke’s Death: So Snoke just dies and we don’t learn anything about him. I can see both points of view on this one. On one hand, I would have liked to learn more about Snoke. On the other hand, where would they go with him? Make him an Emperor Redeux? Nevertheless, the screenwriters could have used their big paychecks as motivation to think of something fun to do with him. Mostly, I don’t like reducing the villain gallery to Kylo and Hux. Hux suxs and Kylo is kind of a likable villain. You need bad guys to cut through on your way to a likable villain. Like what would Hans Gruber have been like without Karl and the rest of the terrorists as cannon fodder? I would guess the filmmakers will remedy this by bringing in the Knights of Ren or something in the next one. Then Rey can whip through all of them without breaking a sweat, and Kylo will tell her he loves her because she is the only one who understands him. Will he then die or will they get married? I’m going to guess marriage at this time.

Luke’s Death: Subjectively, Luke’s fate didn’t bother me. I was never a big Luke guy. Objectively, I can see why it angers folks. You got this important character who seems to turn his back on everything that he was about, faces the bad guy via projection and then dies. Yeah, that’s a bit of a bummer. You might even say it had some subverted expectations about it. This is a tricky one. I’m not sure how to handle it differently. My guess is it maybe doesn’t matter. They will probably bring him back in the next one as a force ghost, and he can do something suitably monumental then to make up for it.

Now all that remains to be done is rank where I put The Last Jedi in the overall hierarchy of Star Wars films. There are breaks in the numbers because I feel like some of the films need buffers from the ones below them to show they are more than one notch superior.

1. Star Wars (perfect)

1.5. The Empire Strikes Back (also pretty perfect; this ranking is mostly subjective because I don’t like cliffhanger endings)

3. The Return of the Jedi (if only it didn’t have Ewoks; I get the allegory, if that was the intention (I tend to think toys was the real intention); I think everyone gets the possible allegory, but teddy bears defeating the Empire is still ridiculous any way one cuts it)

5. The Phantom Menace (this might be controversial, but I feel like it was Lucas’s last attempt at genuinely trying before we broke him with our nitpicking)

5.5. The Last Jedi (like I said, I thought it was mostly solid)

6. Revenge of the Sith (I feel like I have to put this one here even though I can take it or leave it)

7. Attack of the Clones (it had tributes to Ray Harryhausen)

9. Rogue One (so much potential but so messy)

10. The Force Awakens (Rogue One is a mess, but at least it isn’t a remake)

XX. Solo (I actually heard from some people it is kind of fun. I will see it someday)

In conclusion, which my essay-writing teachers told me to include, I conclude that The Last Jedi is a solid film.